Hello everyone!

Recently, I noticed that Finnair flies a lot of long haul routes from/to Helsinki. How do they achieve good load factors and maintain these routes since population and tourism in Finland aren't that big? Also, do you have any suggestions of future destinations?

Thanks for your responses in advance!

Finnair isn't targeting travellers to and from Finland. They are successful in attracting travellers from some other countries such as the UK who are traveling to Asia and vice versa.

The HEL base is well-positioned for Asian destinations. Also the 359s are young and economical.

HEL is a logical stopping point for those going to/from UK and places like ICN, NRT, PEK and PVG. Connecting through HEL adds less than 100 miles to each of those 4 cities from LHR.

Dimitris7701 wrote:

Hello everyone!

Recently, I noticed that Finnair flies a lot of long haul routes from/to Helsinki. How do they achieve good load factors and maintain these routes since population and tourism in Finland aren't that big? Also, do you have any suggestions of future destinations?

Thanks for your responses in advance!

Finland is not very populated but they population is pretty "rich" and prone to travel abroad, several time per year, in addition to finns, they get feed from Scandinavia, baltics, north east russia, and to Asia from the whole Europe, also mid airports.

*north west russia

Dimitris7701 wrote:

Hello everyone!

Recently, I noticed that Finnair flies a lot of long haul routes from/to Helsinki. How do they achieve good load factors and maintain these routes since population and tourism in Finland aren't that big? Also, do you have any suggestions of future destinations?

Thanks for your responses in advance!

For Western Europe to Asia connections it is a lot shorter to connect in HEL than in IST/DXB/DOH or elsewhere. They target lots of the Europe to Asia connecting and they also have a very good product in both J and Y on the new A350s.

With the partnership with AS, I'm hoping someday Finnair will return to SEA.

To start, Finnair was the first "western Europe" airline that offered non-stop to/from Japan, by operating DC-10 with additional fuel tanks over Arctic Ocean and down Bering Strait. HEL is also very well located on the Great Circle Route between NE Asia (Japan, S. Korea, Northern China) and Europe.

Their network is definitely very niche, and AY pretty much throw all eggs in a single basket (i.e. Asia-Europe market, just for comparison, their presence in N. America is very small), but they're to certain extent successful. You'll also be surprised how popular Finland is among Japanese (especially) and also Chinese tourists.

Load Factors are good and improving. for 2017 it was 83,3% for the North American flights and 86.7% for the Asian flights, both better then 2016.

george77300 wrote:

Dimitris7701 wrote:

Hello everyone!

Recently, I noticed that Finnair flies a lot of long haul routes from/to Helsinki. How do they achieve good load factors and maintain these routes since population and tourism in Finland aren't that big? Also, do you have any suggestions of future destinations?

Thanks for your responses in advance!

For Western Europe to Asia connections it is a lot shorter to connect in HEL than in IST/DXB/DOH or elsewhere. They target lots of the Europe to Asia connecting and they also have a very good product in both J and Y on the new A350s.

So HEL has the advantage of its position or am I missing something?

In addition to the route length, Finnair also serves some cities in Asia which are largely unserved by European competition, e.g. Chongqing, Nagoya, Nanjing, Xi'an, Fukuoka. For most of these, Finnair is the only connection to Europe, only competing with Lufthansa on some routes. British Airways, Air France, and KLM are largely absent from that area

Dimitris7701 wrote:

george77300 wrote:

Dimitris7701 wrote:

Hello everyone!

Recently, I noticed that Finnair flies a lot of long haul routes from/to Helsinki. How do they achieve good load factors and maintain these routes since population and tourism in Finland aren't that big? Also, do you have any suggestions of future destinations?

Thanks for your responses in advance!

For Western Europe to Asia connections it is a lot shorter to connect in HEL than in IST/DXB/DOH or elsewhere. They target lots of the Europe to Asia connecting and they also have a very good product in both J and Y on the new A350s.

So HEL has the advantage of its position or am I missing something?

It does indeed.

Finnair's aim of connecting Europe to Asia goes way back. HEL is perfectly positioned for such connectivity. We're often talking less than 1.1 routing factor versus a nonstop flight from places in Europe to Asia.

Dimitris7701 wrote:

george77300 wrote:

Dimitris7701 wrote:

Hello everyone!

Recently, I noticed that Finnair flies a lot of long haul routes from/to Helsinki. How do they achieve good load factors and maintain these routes since population and tourism in Finland aren't that big? Also, do you have any suggestions of future destinations?

Thanks for your responses in advance!

For Western Europe to Asia connections it is a lot shorter to connect in HEL than in IST/DXB/DOH or elsewhere. They target lots of the Europe to Asia connecting and they also have a very good product in both J and Y on the new A350s.

So HEL has the advantage of its position or am I missing something?

Yes. And AY took advantage of it.

Instead of trying to be everyone else, AY found a niche and really expanded on it. Walking thru HEL and there are more Japanese and Chinese travelers than others by a long shot!

Had Finnair tried the classic strategy, they'd likely either be bought by the big 3 (IAG, LH or AFKL), broke or irrelevant.

While it's very true that AY is heavily reliant on wider connecting traffic, there's also growing interest in the Nordics from Asia, especially China. For example when in the past winter seasons the most popular destinations for AY's Chinese passengers used to be places like Rome or Paris, in the last two seasons it's been Lapland instead. So much so that AY has even been contemplating direct flights to Lapland from PEK. Finland has also, for some reason, always been relatively popular among Japanese tourists, and this situation has been the same even before AY flew to Japan in the current magnitude.

When it comes to future destinations it will be interesting to follow where they're headed in the next few years as they have decided to accelerate A350 deliveries and keep their A330s that they were originally supposed to get rid off. AY should have two additional A350s by next summer so we should hear about their plans for S19 in the following months. However, long-term they can't grow much more in Asia if Russia decides not to allow more Siberian overflight rights anytime soon, as unless I'm mistaken they have used most of the current quota. I personally wouldn't be that surprised to see AY try a new destination in the US or a few additional frequencies to JFK like they used to have one summer several years ago. Not saying it's related, but it looks like they've rescheduled JFK and ORD slightly for next summer season.

Dimitris7701 wrote:

Hello everyone!

Recently, I noticed that Finnair flies a lot of long haul routes from/to Helsinki. How do they achieve good load factors and maintain these routes since population and tourism in Finland aren't that big? Also, do you have any suggestions of future destinations?

Thanks for your responses in advance!

HEL is in a perfect place to connect Northern Europe to Asia as well as West Coast USA



Extend the line from HEL going S from USA and W from Asia.

Compare to DXB which is a significant detour from Northern Asia.

Moscow is in a slightly better place for North Asia (with more O&D to support a hub, especially from China), but Finland has geopolitical advantages due to being part of Schengen as well as better service and reputation.

WorldFlier wrote:

Dimitris7701 wrote:

Hello everyone!

Recently, I noticed that Finnair flies a lot of long haul routes from/to Helsinki. How do they achieve good load factors and maintain these routes since population and tourism in Finland aren't that big? Also, do you have any suggestions of future destinations?

Thanks for your responses in advance!

HEL is in a perfect place to connect Northern Europe to Asia as well as West Coast USA



Extend the line from HEL going S from USA and W from Asia.

Compare to DXB which is a significant detour from Northern Asia.

Moscow is in a slightly better place for North Asia (with more O&D to support a hub, especially from China), but Finland has geopolitical advantages due to being part of Schengen as well as better service and reputation.

Firstly, thanks for your response! Do you think ATH or IST could become a hub for flights to Asia especially the Southern one?

Dimitris7701 wrote:

WorldFlier wrote:

Dimitris7701 wrote:

Hello everyone!

Recently, I noticed that Finnair flies a lot of long haul routes from/to Helsinki. How do they achieve good load factors and maintain these routes since population and tourism in Finland aren't that big? Also, do you have any suggestions of future destinations?

Thanks for your responses in advance!

HEL is in a perfect place to connect Northern Europe to Asia as well as West Coast USA



Extend the line from HEL going S from USA and W from Asia.

Compare to DXB which is a significant detour from Northern Asia.

Moscow is in a slightly better place for North Asia (with more O&D to support a hub, especially from China), but Finland has geopolitical advantages due to being part of Schengen as well as better service and reputation.

Firstly, thanks for your response! Do you think ATH or IST could become a hub for flights to Asia especially the Southern one?

IST already is but not better distance wise. Even South east Asia on a LHR-BKK or LHR-SIN it is shorter via HEL than IST. And when you go more east such as PEK/NRT/PVG it is even worse via IST. HEL is considerably better than further south.

Also one important thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is the fact that HEL also allows a 24-hour rotation to most destinations in Asia which enables very high aircraft utilisation rates and is key to making some routes viable.

It seems like HEL is well-placed for PHL-Asia connections.

bridge29 wrote:

It seems like HEL is well-placed for PHL-Asia connections.

What aircraft would they use, unless they lease one? I would think Finnair doesn't have a extra aircraft to start this route.

bridge29 wrote:

It seems like HEL is well-placed for PHL-Asia connections.

Highly doubtful. Connection times will be significant. Flights from the east coast to Europe are generally red-eyes, as are most of Finnair's flights to Asia. Flights back to North America probably depart before flights from Asia arrive in Helsinki. Connecting North America with Asia isn't Finnair's business model, anyway, so they probably won't consider it.

Finnair is the Emirates of the north.

bridge29 wrote:

It seems like HEL is well-placed for PHL-Asia connections.

Which part of Asia? B/c nobody in the right mind will connect in Europe from PHL to, let say, Japan or S. Korea or most of China.

Their existing US flights target traffic to/from Nordic region AFAIK, which is why they don't really fly to that many US destinations in comparison to most larger Europe carriers.

Nami wrote:

Also one important thing that hasn't been mentioned yet is the fact that HEL also allows a 24-hour rotation to most destinations in Asia which enables very high aircraft utilisation rates and is key to making some routes viable.

Indeed. They do have that morning arrival banks (3/wk from BKK, and daily from HKG and SIN) that required 2 planes b/c AY parked their plane at the destination for 6-7 hours. All the other flights to/from APAC regions are 24-hour turn. The 359 that fly to either HKG or SIN usually fly the daily 359 HEL-LHR-HEL rotation to increase utilization.

Dimitris7701 wrote:

Firstly, thanks for your response! Do you think ATH or IST could become a hub for flights to Asia especially the Southern one?

TK already carried a fair number of SE Asia (and cities far south enough i.e. HKG) or South Asia to Europe traffic right now. Places in Southern Europe (i.e. Italy, Balkans, Iberian Peninsula) are comparable distance between flying through HEL vs. flying through IST.

aviationaware wrote:

Finnair is the Emirates of the north.

Not quite - at best they're a mini-TK of the north. AY put everything in one basket, but it's working for them.

Pengaea wrote:

bridge29 wrote:

It seems like HEL is well-placed for PHL-Asia connections.

Highly doubtful. Connection times will be significant. Flights from the east coast to Europe are generally red-eyes, as are most of Finnair's flights to Asia. Flights back to North America probably depart before flights from Asia arrive in Helsinki. Connecting North America with Asia isn't Finnair's business model, anyway, so they probably won't consider it.

Although I think Eastern USA to East Asia is probably better served flying westbound, PHL-HEL could also be flown by AA since AY and AA are both in the TATL JV, though not sure how well a daytime flight to HEL would do to make up that bank.

Little bit off-topic ...

Finnair has a lot of codeshare flights with Aeroflot, but none with S7 Airlines. Does this have anything to do with keeping the Russians calm in regards to the overflight rights etc ?

Otherwise a collaboration between AY and SU would be unusual - since AY and S7 are both in OW alliance but do not have any deeper cooperation as well as no codesharing.

Kuala Lumpur must be your next destination

cityshuttle wrote:

Finnair has a lot of codeshare flights with Aeroflot, but none with S7 Airlines. Does this have anything to do with keeping the Russians calm in regards to the overflight rights etc ?

At least AY flies to SVO instead of S7 hub in DME.
And SU codeshares with AY only on SVO-HEL (not even on LED-HEL) route so partnership is more for AY rather than SU, which codeshares almost on every flight out of SVO.

cityshuttle wrote:

Little bit off-topic ...

Finnair has a lot of codeshare flights with Aeroflot, but none with S7 Airlines. Does this have anything to do with keeping the Russians calm in regards to the overflight rights etc ?

Otherwise a collaboration between AY and SU would be unusual - since AY and S7 are both in OW alliance but do not have any deeper cooperation as well as no codesharing.

S7 don't fly to HEL and AY don't serve their hubs in Russia.

About SU: When Russia is involved everything is possible Though, Finnair codeshare with several major airlines outside oneworld, like Air France (AY operates all AF flights CDG-HEL), Czech Airlines, TAP, Vietnam Airlines, Air China etc.

I still can't for the life of me figure out why AY continues to avoid LAX (and it's immunized partner's hub here) while flying to SFO.

What are they targeting/receiving that brought them to that decision?

Even the SFO flights are only in the summer, so it doesn't seem as if California is a big market.

gunnerman wrote:

Even the SFO flights are only in the summer, so it doesn't seem as if California is a big market.

N. America overall is not exactly a market that's big for them. Their only year-round flight is to/from JFK. All others (ORD, MIA, and SFO) are seasonal.

As for LAX - I guess one of the biggest issue would be their inability to turn the plane around within 24 hrs (The SFO rotation is 23.5hr). Yes, a few of their Asian rotation used 1.5 planes also (HKG, SIN, and 3/wk BKK), but that's almost by choice (i.e. timed for an early morning arrival into HEL) rather than necessity.

zakuivcustom wrote:

gunnerman wrote:

Even the SFO flights are only in the summer, so it doesn't seem as if California is a big market.

N. America overall is not exactly a market that's big for them.

True, N. America still is a small market for AY. Comparing different markets (ticket revenues) in 2017:

North Atlantic 5,9%
Finland 8,6%
Europe 41,5%
Asia 43,6%

(unallocated 0,4%)

cityshuttle wrote:

Finnair has a lot of codeshare flights with Aeroflot, but none with S7 Airlines. Does this have anything to do with keeping the Russians calm in regards to the overflight rights etc ?

Otherwise a collaboration between AY and SU would be unusual - since AY and S7 are both in OW alliance but do not have any deeper cooperation as well as no codesharing.

As mentioned above, AY and SU fly to SVO while S7's hub is at DME. S7 did briefly operate to HEL but the collapse of the Russian ruble in 2014 quickly killed off the route. I had kind of been expecting a return of S7 but instead SU's LCC, Pobeda, will soon start from VKO. /OT

RainerBoeing777 wrote:

Kuala Lumpur must be your next destination

There were some kind of rumours about KUL earlier this year but I doubt its of interest to AY especially seeing how they just started codesharing with KA between KUL and HKG.

About SFO; I remember hearing someone from AY say that since starting SFO it has been one of their best performing routes yield-wise. They are testing the waters a bit and extending the season until December this year.

Last SFO flight will be on 6 December, service resumption 3x weekly using 333 on 1 May 2019.

Are they the largest airline in Europe by number of Asian destination?

jodieellis wrote:

Are they the largest airline in Europe by number of Asian destination?

Not even close. Though to East-Asia (China, Korea, Japan) they probably are.

Jetty wrote:

jodieellis wrote:

Are they the largest airline in Europe by number of Asian destination?

Not even close. Though to East-Asia (China, Korea, Japan) they probably are.

If you count the entire Asia, I'm pretty sure TK wins by miles. SU should be up there also.

If you count APAC (East + SE Asia), then KL still wins with 16 cities, although 3 of the cities (CGK via KUL, DPS via SIN, and MNL via TPE) are not non-stop from AMS.

TK fly to 15 cities in APAC non-stop from IST, 7 in East Asia and 8 in ASEAN. They also fly to ULN via FRU.

AY is not too far behind (14 cities in APAC), and their network is the largest in East Asia (12 cities; LH has 11 and KL has 10).

On the other hand, though, throw in India and LH now wins. Throw in Middle East, and well, it gets really messy.

RainerBoeing777 wrote:

Kuala Lumpur must be your next destination

KUL is unlikely going to be Finnair's next long-haul destination, but AY will definitely serve KUL in the future. At the moment, I see HND, PUS, CTS or a Chinese city more likely as next destinations.

Finnair now has 19 long haul destinations in Asia, seven of them seasonal. According to their annual report their market share here in traffic between Europe and Asia was 5.9% in 2017, the strongest single Asian market being Japan.

Scheduled destinations is Asia, bold letters = served year around:

China & Hong Kong: HKG PEK PVG NKG CKG CAN XIY
Japan: NRT KIX NGO FUK
Thailand: BKK HKT KBV
India: DEL GOI
Singapore: SIN
South-Korea ICN
Vietnam: SGN

Middle-East and Central-Asia: DXB TSE

Scheduled destinations in North-America:

USA: JFK SFO ORD MIA
Mexico: PVR
Dominican Republic: POP
Cuba: HAV

Jetty wrote:

jodieellis wrote:

Are they the largest airline in Europe by number of Asian destination?

Not even close. Though to East-Asia (China, Korea, Japan) they probably are.

AY is the largest European carrier in the Japanese market, at least according to their own words. They have wanted to add HND for a while but slots haven't been available to them yet and China is blocking any additional frequencies to PEK and PVG whereas S.Korea (or should I write KE) is unwilling to allow more flights to ICN and the launch of PUS.

Dimitris7701 wrote:

Hello everyone!

Recently, I noticed that Finnair flies a lot of long haul routes from/to Helsinki.

This is understandable. After all, Finnair has only been in business for 95 years and was indeed the first airline to offer direct Europe-Asia flights in 1983. Ever since they've carved out a nice and lucrative niche based on that market. Their USP is the ability to do a Helsinki-'Asia'-Helsinki rotation in less than 24 hours, allowing for as close to maximum utilisation of their long-haul fleet as is practically possible.

Suggestions of increased services across the Atlantic are founded on hope more than reality; the competition is extremely hard on that market, and geographically it makes no sense to connect via HEL from almost anywhere in Europe. Their biggest advantage is, and will always be, their relative closeness to Far East Asia, particularly China and Japan. That's not a bad niche to exploit, and as long as they keep their eyes firmly on that ball, they're almost assured a steady and prosperous future.

As for connecting the US with Asia, surely you've all heard of the 787 and A350? Why on earth would you connect in Northern Europe, when you can direct from almost anywhere in the US to almost anywhere in the Far East, onboard these machines built for that very purpose?

LAX-NRT: 4700NM
LAX-HEL-NRT: 9100NM

ORD-NRT: 5450NM
ORD-HEL-NRT: 8100NM

JFK-NRT: 5900NM
JFK-HEL-NRT: 7800NM

That's one hell of a detour!

Some 10+ years ago Finnair considered JFK-HEL-India connections, it looks good on the Great Circle map but nothing serious materialized. Around that time BOM was axed and never returned. India seems to be a hard market for AY, India's location doesn't support their Europe-Asia business model. There hasn't been much growth, a scheduled seasonal service (A333) to Goa was added recently.

JFK-India: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=jfk-del-jf ... fk-hel-goi

HELyes wrote:

Some 10+ years ago Finnair considered JFK-HEL-India connections, it looks good on the Great Circle map but nothing serious materialized. Around that time BOM was axed and never returned. India seems to be a hard market for AY, India's location doesn't support their Europe-Asia business model. There hasn't been much growth, a scheduled seasonal service (A333) to Goa was added recently.

JFK-India: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=jfk-del-jf ... fk-hel-goi

I wouldn't be surprised if Finnair returned to Mumbai in the near future given the growth at the moment. In 2017, AY increased Delhi service from 5 to 6 weekly flights in the winter season and during the summer season, Finnair now operates 4 weekly flights to Delhi, instead of 3 weekly flights. Next winter DEL will be served with 7 weekly flights. Also, last year 104,098 (+26.5%) passengers traveled between India and Helsinki by plane and 97,956 (+19.0%) passengers on HEL-DEL route. This year, 81,819 (+50.4%) passengers have used AY's routes to India, meaning that the level of entire 2016 with 82,308 passengers has almost reached already in July. If the growth continues, Finnair might return to BOM.

Can India be served from HEL with the A321NEO/ LR

4,000 nm from HEL does cover all of India. The very southern tip of Sri Lanka is where the cutoff is, so southern India would be pushing it on an A321LR. HEL-BOM though is easily inside that distance- it's 3,682 miles (3,200 nautical miles). I think the A321LR could be an interesting aircraft for Finnair. More minor Asian routes such as India and much of more northern and western China, along with north eastern USA and Canada. The A321LR could make ORD doable year round maybe too, while of course also being basically just a normal A321neo for the rest of the operational point of view. They haven't ordered any A32xneos as of yet, but I cannot see their narrowbody fleet going any other direction. I can see an order for A320neos and A321neos and maybe the A220 to replace the A319s and E-190s.

Another small aspect is that HEL is a nice airport. It’s not big and operations quite smooth. If you aren’t a big fan of spots such as AMS or CDG or LHR that’s a good place to connect through.

Finnair does have some LCC stuff in their innereuropean flights. You pay for beverages, for example. I don’t know if this also applies to their long haul flights.

fjhc wrote:

4,000 nm from HEL does cover all of India. The very southern tip of Sri Lanka is where the cutoff is, so southern India would be pushing it on an A321LR. HEL-BOM though is easily inside that distance- it's 3,682 miles (3,200 nautical miles). I think the A321LR could be an interesting aircraft for Finnair. More minor Asian routes such as India and much of more northern and western China, along with north eastern USA and Canada. The A321LR could make ORD doable year round maybe too, while of course also being basically just a normal A321neo for the rest of the operational point of view. They haven't ordered any A32xneos as of yet, but I cannot see their narrowbody fleet going any other direction. I can see an order for A320neos and A321neos and maybe the A220 to replace the A319s and E-190s.

And AY definitely have plan for narrowbodies to fly to smaller cities in China:
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article ... lans-china

Even using a somewhat reduced range (3500nm vs. "nominal" 4000nm), AY can reach the like of PEK, XIY, etc. with A321LR with no problem.

As for India - the main problem is that any ex-India traffic flow (to Europe or N. America mainly) they'll have to compete with the like of ME3 and also larger EU3 players like LH and BA. AY also doesn't have the distance advantage from pretty much anywhere in India south of Delhi.

mchei wrote:

Finnair does have some LCC stuff in their innereuropean flights. You pay for beverages, for example. I don’t know if this also applies to their long haul flights.

https://www.finnair.com/int/gb/informat ... nomy-class

So depends on the route, beer/wine are included either for first meal only or at all times. Hard Liquor (Cognac/Whisky, etc.) they do charge for, though. In another word, not too different from UA long-haul for East Asian routes.

Their short-haul are definitely more on the LCC-side, though.

My

I know it's a question of bilaterals and not always in Finnair's power to do, but, more than new destinations, what would REALLY be welcome is a second frequency to PVG and PEK that would arrive in the afternoon.

Everything is good about Finnair except these 7am arrivals when you have to struggle against your body through the whole day (if it is your final destination). BTW, they could also turn them around in the late evening and make them arrive to HEL in the early morning increasing connectivity.